With fighter pay in spotlight, UFC vets shed light on life in octagon's middle-class

For three of the UFC’s rank and file, the bottom line rarely ends at “show” and “win.”

Sponsorships, performance bonuses, and discretionary bonuses help to line the pockets of George Roop, Jacob Volkmann and Nam Phan.

They are not millionaires. But despite a wide disparity in pay with their headliner counterparts, figures disclosed by the fighters painted an upper-middle-class living.

Pay-per-view dollars are, for now, a faraway dream that Roop, Volkmann and Phan hope to realize. They have won and lost and are no strangers to the preliminary card. They draw hardcore interest but are known by a casual few.

Featherweight Roop, a veteran of “The Ultimate Fighter 8,” has fought nine times in the now-defunct WEC and UFC and carries a record of 3-5-1 under the Zuffa-owned promotions. Lightweight Volkmann signed with the promotion in 2009 and has fought seven times in the UFC, where he’s amassed a 5-2 record including five consecutive wins inside the octagon. Phan, a veteran of “The Ultimate Fighter 12,” has fought four times in the UFC as a featherweight and carries a 1-3 record.

Thirty-nine millionaires have been created by the promotion, according to UFC executive Lorenzo Fertitta, who defended his company’s pay structure in a controversial segment aired on Sunday for ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.” Responding to charges that top stars are compensated handsomely while lower-tier fighters risk life and limb for as low as $6,000 a fight, he said the company shares around 50 percent of its revenue with athletes under contract.

Roop, Volkmann and Phan’s guaranteed pay leans toward the lower end of what fighters make in the promotion.

But they’re not struggling.

The pay

Roop plainly said it is nobody’s business how much money he makes. But he also wanted to make it plainly known that he feels well-compensated.

“I just bought a house, and you have to remember, I’m on the lower echelon,” he told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com)

Roop said he made $6,000 for his first fight of 2011, which took place in January at “UFC Fight Night 23: UFC Fights for the Troops 2.” He got knocked out in 88 seconds by onetime training partner Mark Hominick, who went on to challenge current featherweight champ Jose Aldo for the title.

Roop, who negotiated a multi-fight contract with the WEC that carried over to the UFC, would have made another $6,000 in guaranteed pay had he won the main-card fight. But as it turned out, he was afterward given a $6,000 discretionary bonus. He also took home an additional $20,000 in pay from sponsors after a 15 percent deduction from a manager who helps him secure such support.

As Fertitta explained to ESPN, discretionary bonuses put extra pay in a fighter’s pocket for a particularly good performance. They are not disclosed to state athletic commissions. Performance bonuses are publicly handed out following an event and include “Fight of the Night,” “Submission of the Night” and Knockout of the Night.” Depending on the fighter and the event, these payouts, which are part of a UFC fighter’s taxable income, can dwarf his guaranteed pay.

At The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale event, Roop made another $6,000 to show on the event’s preliminary card. But after landing a vicious body punch to Josh Grispi, he earned a $6,000 win bonus, as well as a discretionary bonus he said was “$6,000 or $8,000.” Because the fight later aired on Spike TV, he received a pay bump in sponsors that totaled just under $20,000 after his manager’s deduction. (Televised fights traditionally fetch higher sponsorship fees because they carry a wider audience than preliminary-card fights. Roop said he’s guaranteed higher pay in the event that his bout is broadcast.)

At this past October’s UFC 137 event, Roop’s pay jumped to a guaranteed $8,000 as the result of his previous win, though he was denied an $8,000 win bonus when he lost a split decision to Hatsu Hioki. Nevertheless, he was paid a “$5,000 or $6,000″ discretionary bonus, and picked up an additional $19,000 from sponsors.

In all, Roop estimates he made around $100,000 before taxes from fighting in the UFC this past year. Although he was victorious in just one of three bouts, all were action-packed.

Volkmann, who gave an interview while ice fishing in White Bear Lake, Minn., is reaping the benefits of the pyramid structure typical to UFC contracts in fights this year. He banked $32,000 ($16,000 to show and $16,000 to win) in his most recent fight – a unanimous-decision win over Efrain Escudero at UFC 141 – that amounted to a 22 percent increase from his previous check of $28,000 ($14,000 to show/win), which he earned by outpointing Danny Castillo at UFC on Versus 5. And the payout was a 17 percent increase from the $24,000 ($12,000 to show/win) he earned with a decision win over Antonio McKee at UFC 125.

Twenty percent of Volkmann’s show and win purses went to his manager, and he paid his gym $1,000 in gym and training fees.

For UFC 125, he took home a $3,000 discretionary bonus. But that more than doubled at UFC on Versus 5, where he was paid an additional $7,000. He awaits his check from UFC 141.

At the moment, sponsor pay lags. Volkmann, who has fought on preliminary-card bouts in five of seven UFC appearances, said he received $1,500 for UFC 125, $1200 for UFC on Versus 5, and $2,000 for UFC 141. He receives no pay for wearing patches representing his gym and the National Guard, as they don’t officially sponsor him.

“Sometimes I’ll get a bar, but they only give 250 bucks,” he said.

Volkmann, who also runs a chiropractic business and coaches part-time for a high school wrestling team (he is currently on administrative leave), estimates he took home between $60,000 and $65,000 before taxes in 2011.

Phan declined to disclose the discretionary bonuses he earned this past year, though he said they were “always generous.” As part of the cast for “The Ultimate Fighter 12,” he directly negotiated a deal that gave him a guaranteed $8,000 to show and $8,000 to win for each of his fights. He won one out of his three, though a performance bonus for his fight with Leonard Garcia at UFC 136 put an additional $75,000 in his pocket for “Fight of the Night.”

Sponsor-wise, Phan estimates he made between $19,000 and $21,000 this past year.

“I’ve fought with a lot of other organizations,” Phan said. “They pay horrible. They make you sell tickets. UFC is such a huge difference.

“I fought boxing, and I got like a thousand bucks. It was crap. Six-thousand dollars is great!”

The cost

There is constant injury and the monastic life required to compete at the sport’s highest levels, but it’s also not cheap to be a fighter. Equipment, travel, food, supplements, licensing, and medical insurance are the primary costs associated with the job, the fighters said.

Roop and Volkmann fly additional cornermen to fights and pay for the licensing fees required by state athletic commissions (The UFC covers the cost of one cornerman per fight). Roop gives the UFC’s $50 per diem to his team during fight week, as he’s cutting weight and isn’t eating much. Phan’s cornermen fly themselves to his fights and pay their own fees. All pile their teams into the one hotel room covered by the promotion.

“I’m being resourceful and saving up so I have money, so when my future coffeeshop-girl wife tries to divorce me, I can get half,” Phan joked.

Volkmann estimates he spends $250 a month on gas getting to and from his gym, Minnesota Mixed Martial Arts Academy. He also spends approximately $500 a year on equipment.

All fighters incurred negligible supplement costs due to sponsorships. Food ate up $500 of Phan’s monthly budget, and as a gym owner, he paid $2,250 per month to rent the facility.

The costs of keeping up to date the medical paperwork required by commissions ranged from $150 to $400 yearly.

But as Roop noted, many of the expenses he incurred were tax write-offs, and with the UFC’s help, he was able to create a limited liability company in his name that helped him save money at the end of the year.

He also said he profited from appearance requests. A trip to a local Hooters to watch a UFC event netted him $2,000. Additionally, he was able to raise his rate for private MMA lessons to $70 per hour.

Of course, these figures are self-reported and are unlikely to represent the total costs and benefits the fighters incur on a yearly basis. Unnamed fighters quoted by ESPN said they were “fighting for crumbs” and “couldn’t make ends meet” if they made $10,000 a fight and fought twice a year. One said training expenses ran $22,000 per year before travel costs were added.

Roop fought three times this past year and has greatly benefitted as the result of his busy schedule. That might not be the case if things slowed. But regardless, he said the UFC’s annual fighter summit helped instill a sense of thrift.

Each year, Zuffa flies its contracted athletes to a multi-day conference that addresses the ins and outs of working for the promotion, marketing, drug abuse, and financial planning.

“It’s not about how much you earn,” Roop said. “It’s about how much you keep.”

The split

Although widely estimated to be worth in excess of one billion dollars, the UFC’s yearly revenue is unknown, and Fertitta, who along with brother Frank Fertitta Jr. owns a majority stake in the privately-held Zuffa, won’t reveal an exact figure. Moreover, he declined to reveal amounts given to fighters as discretionary bonuses on the basis that it would cause more complications in their lives.

Fertitta said comparisons with other major sports leagues don’t work when gauging Zuffa’s generosity to its fighters. He said that unlike the company’s major league counterparts, significant costs in marketing, production, and staffing are paid by the company. Despite that, fighter pay has grown a twice the rate of the revenue growth.

Nevertheless, Zuffa could be forced to defend its position to the government. Fertitta said it was his understanding that an investigation launched this past year by the Federal Trade Commission stemmed from Zuffa’s purchase of rival promotion Strikeforce.

In a video rebuttal to the ESPN report, upper-echelon fighters interviewed by the UFC staunchly defended the promotion’s pay practices. But even for those who didn’t enjoy a share of pay-per-view dollars or backstage million-dollar bonuses, the bottom line looked good, particularly when fights were frequent. And when weighed against the alternatives, there seemed no comparison.

“Do I wish that I could make a million dollars? Of course,” Roop said. “But I understand that you have to work your way up. I think it’s about how much hard work you put in, and how you perform.”
(Pictured: George Roop)

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